The Cornucopia Manifesto

Although considered by many as the cornerstone of European education, Classics as an academic discipline does not enjoy the best of reputations. The institutional barriers within education that must be overcome even just to study Classics have left many people viewing it as a white, male, elitist subject. Although this wasn’t always true, changes to educational practices, especially in the last century and particularly in the UK, mean that it is not an accessible subject for the vast majority of students. Moreover, because people do not see themselves represented within Classics, either in the subject itself or in wider Classics academia, they do not see it as being relevant to them, and are therefore uninterested in pursuing it, regardless of previous experience.

Recently however, Classics as a discipline has been examining its history and internal practices in an attempt to address valid concerns about structural inequalities and social justice. One result of this long-overdue process was a report commissioned by the Council of University Classics Departments on equality and diversity in Classics, which was published at the end of 2020. The report supplied some rather disturbing evidence of ingrained inequalities across Classics in the UK and made a significant number of recommendations for changes to areas such as employment practice, student recruitment, the Classics curriculum, and publication practice.

One of the issues highlighted was the imbalance in representation of female classicists and classicists of colour presented in student reading lists: despite the fact that female classicists make up just under half of working academics, and scholars of colour roughly ten per cent, the majority of reading lists across an array of topics are dominated by white, male scholars. Inspired by this, and the realisation that St Andrews’ own reading lists often unconsciously reproduced this imbalance, Drs Alice König and Sian Lewis commissioned a project with the university’s Summer Team Enterprise Programme. They proposed a webpage for the School of Classics to find and highlight diverse voices within the subject, with resources spanning ancient history, literature, archaeology and philosophy, and drawing not only on traditional scholarship, but also on the work of other academic and associated practitioners.

Passionate about our subjects and aware of the need for more diverse voices in academia, the 2021 STEP team, comprised of classicists, historians, and philosophers, spent just under two months searching for, compiling, and reviewing resources created by the kinds of people who are often overlooked in Classics. Through our research, and the determination of the St Andrews’ School of Classics to create greater diversity in the scholarship to which its students are exposed, A Cornucopia of Classics Resources was born. A database with great potential and the intention to expand and grow, we hope that the Cornucopia can provide a little more variety and a little more diversity to the field of Classics.

– the 2021 Diverse Classics STEP team